Consumer Reports’ revised iPhone 4 advisory is bound to make all of the nightly newscasts as Apple staffers are scrambling to delete user comments referencing the report. How could a well-respected product evaluation agency advise against buying Apple’s baby and at the same time rate iPhone 4 as the best smartphone on the planet?

You could be forgiven for thinking that Consumer Reports hates Apple’s phone. Its revised advisory says you should hold off buying an iPhone 4 until Apple fixes the so-called death grip. It also slams the gadget maker over the claim that an upcoming firmware update will fix the issue as it contradicts their lab tests proving that the signal bars drop when you bridge the antenna gap found in the phone’s bottom left corner.

It’s a design flaw that cannot be fixed in software, Consumer Reports insists, and has nothing to do with AT&T’s network or anything on the network end. The post also makes a brief mention of the phone’s overall performance that places it “atop the latest ratings of smartphones.” The problem is, those ratings are available in exchange for $5.95 a month or $26 a year, meaning the vast majority of readers didn’t get the full picture.

AppleInsider reported that iPhone 4 leads in the paid ratings with a score of 76/100, followed by the iPhone 3GS and the HTC Sprint Evo 4G, both ranked at 74 points. The Wall Street Journal’s Digital Daily blog noted that iPhone 4’s display, navigation, web browsing, multimedia, and battery life are all rated as “excellent.” Its phone and messaging capabilities are “Very Good” and voice quality is “Good,” prompting author John Paczkowski to observe the following:

In short, the iPhone 4 is hands-down the best smartphone available today, but Consumer Reports advises against buying it.

Consumer Reports’ revised iPhone 4 advisory just reiterates what most of us have been suspecting all along – the reception issue stems from the stupid antenna implementation that was supposed to be cutting-edge design. For their part Consumer Reports has updated the post with the following note:

Some commentary suggests we’ve retracted an earlier recommendation of the iPhone 4. In fact, our first blog on the iPhone 4’s performance, and a followup comparing it to the Motorola Droid X, were based on preliminary testing, as we stated. Those earlier tests did not address antenna performance. We recommend products only after all tests are complete, and as part of our full smartphone ratings.